Centipede! (2004)
I like centipedes. Let me just get that out of the way. I know it's aberrant, perhaps even perverted, to have affection for a creature whose very existence makes people crazy with disgust. I think they are cool looking, and I appreciate their interesting place near the base of the arthropod family tree. So I was excited to learn of a horror movie called Centipede! but I was also prepared to be very disappointed.
Oh please, Centipede, kill this character first!
I wasn't disappointed, mainly because I expected the movie to be very very bad, and it met that expectation fairly well. I was also expecting some terrible CGI rendering of snakelike monster with a hundred legs, and was pleasantly wrong about that. Kudos to the filmmakers for constructing a rubbery centipede puppet which was fairly accurate looking. It wasn't perfect: it didn't move quite right (rearing up on several pairs of hind legs) and it hissed and clattered as movie bugs (so much louder than the real thing) often do, but I give them points for using actual materials instead of ugly animation.
This mega-myriapod's main drawback is the length of time it takes in picking off our very unlikable group of spelunkers. These obnoxious American brats have decided to go caving in India as a kind of bachelor party. None of them seem to like one another very much, and you can't fault them for it. It's not so unusual to cheer for the monster, but you might hope to feel something for the bedraggled survivors. As it is, the cast seems to have gathered to make a horror movie in between takes on their porn film.
"Dude! We were just about to get it on!"
The most suspenseful sequences derive from an amazingly lame device, wherein our monster responds to an attack by splitting into two. These two centipedes then come down the cave, rapidly charging when they encounter the poison mushroom. No, wait, that's the video game Centipede! The two centipedes then can go in separate directions, each having with a different plot-moving device in its belly. The group of partyers must escape the marauding half-predators despite obstacles such as their hatred for one another, frequent cave-ins of cardboard boulders, and a PG-13 rating. Eventually the combined powers of the local university's geology department and the goofiest police in India join for a rescue attempt, or at least an attempt to blow the rest of the movie's budget on explosives. Not to give it away, but it's a sad day for those of us rooting for the monster; ah well, they can't all be Lake Placid.
Oh please, Centipede, kill this character first!
I wasn't disappointed, mainly because I expected the movie to be very very bad, and it met that expectation fairly well. I was also expecting some terrible CGI rendering of snakelike monster with a hundred legs, and was pleasantly wrong about that. Kudos to the filmmakers for constructing a rubbery centipede puppet which was fairly accurate looking. It wasn't perfect: it didn't move quite right (rearing up on several pairs of hind legs) and it hissed and clattered as movie bugs (so much louder than the real thing) often do, but I give them points for using actual materials instead of ugly animation.
This mega-myriapod's main drawback is the length of time it takes in picking off our very unlikable group of spelunkers. These obnoxious American brats have decided to go caving in India as a kind of bachelor party. None of them seem to like one another very much, and you can't fault them for it. It's not so unusual to cheer for the monster, but you might hope to feel something for the bedraggled survivors. As it is, the cast seems to have gathered to make a horror movie in between takes on their porn film.
"Dude! We were just about to get it on!"
The most suspenseful sequences derive from an amazingly lame device, wherein our monster responds to an attack by splitting into two. These two centipedes then come down the cave, rapidly charging when they encounter the poison mushroom. No, wait, that's the video game Centipede! The two centipedes then can go in separate directions, each having with a different plot-moving device in its belly. The group of partyers must escape the marauding half-predators despite obstacles such as their hatred for one another, frequent cave-ins of cardboard boulders, and a PG-13 rating. Eventually the combined powers of the local university's geology department and the goofiest police in India join for a rescue attempt, or at least an attempt to blow the rest of the movie's budget on explosives. Not to give it away, but it's a sad day for those of us rooting for the monster; ah well, they can't all be Lake Placid.